1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to wireless communications and more specifically relates to a software implemented media access control (“MAC”) layer and implementation of distributed multichannel wireless communication over a wireless network medium.
2. Related Art
Time division multiple access (“TDMA”) is a digital transmission technology that allows a number of users to access a single radio-frequency (“RF”) channel without interference by allocating unique timeslots to each user within each channel. To implement TDMA in a wireless communication network, a centralized controller is required that broadcasts a timing beacon for wireless devices to synchronize with and assigns timeslots to the various wireless devices in the network. The centralized controller requirement for conventional TDMA is a drawback of TDMA for next generation wireless communications.
TDMA additionally suffers from wasted bandwidth. In some TDMA systems such as the global system for mobile communications (“GSM”), the central controller assigns each wireless device one or more timeslots for transmission and if a particular device has no pending data to transmit, the timeslot will go unused. In aggregate, unused slots can be very burdensome on a TDMA communication system, in particular a communication system adapted for data communications.
In some TDMA systems such as the general packet radio service (“GPRS”) or the third generation of mobile phone technologies covered by the ITU IMT-2000 family (“3G”) cellular networks, dynamic timeslot allocation is allowed. However, this has to be performed by a central controller, e.g., base station. In order to send the dynamic information, e.g., queue length, traffic load, etc., of network nodes to the central controller, frequent message exchange is needed between network nodes and the central controller, which causes a high signaling overhead.
Additionally, for wireless communications based on IEEE 802.11, 802.15, 802.16, ultra wide band (“UWB”) and other wireless technologies, scalability and quality of service (“QoS”) are two critical concerns. One significant problem is that the conventional 802.11 MAC is not scalable because the throughput dramatically drops as the number of hops increases and/or as the number of nodes increases. This lack of throughput causes an unacceptable QoS level. Some improvements have been identified such as 802.11e, but even this proposal suffers because it is dependent on the carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (“CSMA/CA”) protocol that does not guarantee any level of traffic flow (i.e., throughput) for single or multihop networks.
For example, enhanced distributed channel access (“EDCA”) only enforces traffic prioritization of different flows on the same node or client. It does not provide prioritization between flows on different nodes or clients. Additionally, while the hybrid coordination function (“HCF”) allows the allocation of a collision free period (“CFP”) the CFP cannot coexist with a collision period (“CP”) because retransmission of packets at the end of the CP will encroach on the CFP and thus cause interference between the CP and CFP periods. The same problem exists when retransmitted packets of CFP fall into the CP. Furthermore, IEEE 802.11e does not have a method to ensure that HCFs of different nodes in a wireless network do not overlap. Accordingly, overlapping HCFs result in collisions and severely limited QoS. Excellent QoS is extremely important for QoS sensitive applications such as voice over internet protocol (“VOIP”), streaming video, and other high bandwidth applications that require high fidelity.
Finally, using alternative techniques such as frequency division multiple access (“FDMA”) or code division multiple access (“CDMA”) as a basis for the wireless communication fails on 802.11 because such techniques require a non 802.11 physical layer. Therefore, these and other significant problems found in the conventional systems have created a need in the industry for a system and method that provides efficient high bandwidth communication over a wireless network medium and overcomes these significant problems found in the conventional systems as described above.